Effect of tempering and cryogenic treatment on wear and mechanical properties of hot work tool steel (H13)

The AISI H13 is a chromium based, medium carbon content hot work tool steel which is widely used in hot working as well as cold working applications. These steels are very popular because of their key characteristics such as high hardness, high strength, high fracture toughness and high wear resistance. These steels are continuously subjected to high mechanical stresses and temperature fluctuations, fatigue and wear loss which results in limited die life. It is therefore necessary to improve the properties of these tool steels. One of the methods to improve the properties of these tool steels is with the help of conventional heat treatment. But no significant improvements in the properties were observed. From the literature survey, it is realized that implementation of cryogenic treatment can improve the properties of tool steel. In the present paper, cryogenic treatment on AISI H13 hot work tool steel is studied with the help of characterization techniques such as hardness, wear and microstructure study. One set of specimens were subjected to conventional heat treatment (HTT) viz. hardening at 1020 °C followed by double tempering at 500 °C. Another set of specimens were subjected to conventional heat treatment followed by deep cryogenic treatment at −196 °C and soft tempering at three different temperatures viz. 200 °C, 300 °C and 400 °C (HTTCT). A modified heat treatment cycle (HTCT) is also proposed with varying soft tempering temperatures viz. 200 °C, 300 °C and 400 °C and comparison is made with HTT and HTTCT. The specimens were tested for hardness, wear and microstructure study. The experimental investigation shows that cryogenically treated specimens shows significant improvement in the hardness and carbide density as compared to conventionally treated specimens. It is thus concluded that HTTCT cycle gives two times higher wear resistance than conventional heat treatment cycle (HTT) because of precipitation of fine tertiary carbides.